Ireland -- Politics and government; Political parties -- Ireland -- History; Sinn Fein
Though the policy of abstention from Parliament came to be known as "the
Hungarian Policy" it was a policy that had been advocated, and to a
certain extent practised, in Ireland long before the Hungarian Deputies
adopted it. In 1844, the "Parliamentary Committee of the Loyal National
Repeal Association on the Attendance of Irish Members in Parliament"
presented a report which contained the following: "The people of Ireland,
having in vain attempted to obtain from the Imperial Parliament detailed
measures of justice, and with equal failure sought the restoration of
their domestic Senate or even inquiry into the wisdom of that restoration,
have at length sought to obtain those rights by agitation out of
Parliament. They have to this end arrayed themselves into a Loyal and
National Association to obtain the Repeal of the Union. They try to obtain
strength by the reality and display of union and organization. They seek
converts by their speeches, their writings, and their peaceful virtues.
They are endeavouring to increase their knowledge and their power by
reading, thinking and discussing. And to carry out their projects of
organization, conversion and self-improvement, they subscribe large funds
to a common treasury. Their efforts in the Imperial Parliament having then
been so fruitless, and their undertaking at home being so vast, they, the
people of Ireland, have consented that such of their members as seek with
them domestic legislation, should secede from the Imperial Parliament and
control the agitation, instruction and organization of the people at
home." This report is signed by Thomas Davis. A correspondence between
Thomas Davis and the Earl of Wicklow, to whom certain resolutions of the
Repeal Association had been sent, debates the rival merits of the policies
of parliamentarianism and abstention. The Earl, who had no intention of
leaving Parliament, wrote: "I now believe that there exists amongst the
British people an anxious desire to do justice to our country and to atone
in every way in their power for the evils of former mismanagement." Lord
Wicklow had formed this conviction before 1844. The "Hungarian Policy" of
1902 was framed for the same situation and in face of the same conviction.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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